Russian Culture Society at the University of Texas-Arlington

RCS Meeting Reminder 11/13/15

This is your weekly reminder for our club meeting that will take place in the usual spot, Trimble Hall Rm 204 @ 12:00. We will be starting fairly quickly so do please try to arrive as quickly as you can. We will be discussing music (музыка) and talk about the Eurovision song contest in particular. We intend to introduce a internal program that we will follow next semester to coincide with the actual Eurovision competition that takes place in the spring. The music we discuss from these activities will also be helpful into helping us choose our song selections for the Cultural Karaoke Night that is hosted by the French Club in February! You will also be introduced to various online radio sources to listen to live contemporary Russian radio, which can be beneficial to our learning members while they complete their домашнее задание.

Russian truckers stage mass protests against new transport tax
The protesters pledge they will block federal highways on November 15 if the planned tariff is not scrapped. Mass demonstrations have taken place in many regions across the country, including outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, and Omsk. The drivers are protesting against a law that has been adopted recently and will come into effect on November 15. According to the new law, each kilometer will cost truck drivers 3.73 rubles meaning the transport companies will have to pay about 350,000 rubles ($5,410) on average for each heavy goods vehicle per year. The tax will be introduced stage by stage and will be fully implemented by February 2019.

Birds’ nests in old church roof contain centuries old paper money and letters
Two-hundred-year-old letters, banknotes worth a small fortune, calendar pages and all kinds of other fascinating scraps were found during renovation works on the Cathedral of the Assumption in Zvenigorod, some 70km west of Moscow. The surprising discovery was made when builders began clearing away hundreds of birds’ nests that had accumulated under the cathedral’s roof.
Shock artist Pavlensky sets Russian security service HQ door on fire
Performance artist from St Petersburg, Pyotr Pavlensky, has set fire to one of the entrances to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) building in Moscow to protest its “never-ending terror”. The artist was quickly arrested and is now facing vandalism charges.

Неделя в Истории
Week in History

November 9, 1911: Invention of the Parachute
Russian inventor Gleb Kotelnikov tested the first successful parachute pack in the world, on November 9, 1911. The parachute RK-1, known as Nyquist, could not be patented by its inventor in Russia, and he had to wait one year to do it in France.

November 10, 1961: Stalingrad gets a new name
Following the de-Stalinization process lead by the government of the USSR, the city of Stalingrad was given a new name: Volgograd. This city, founded in 1589, had three names throughout history. Apart from Stalingrad (Сталинград) and Volgograd (Волгоград), until 1925 it was called Tsaritsyn (Царицын).